Han put his hands on his helmet and tried to rotate it in its locking collar, but did not actually exert any strength. Naturally, it didn't budge. He tried again, and then, miming desperation, he went through the motions of trying to open his helmet visor. It, too, remained obstinately closed.
“Prototype helmets,” Wedge said. “Obviously they need to work some of the bugs out of the system.”
“Obviously,” Sal-Solo echoed.
Han turned and banged his helmet several times against the side of the simulator, then began again. Still the helmet and visor remained in place.
“Never mind, never mind.” Sal-Solo stepped forward and extended his hand. “It's good to meet a patriot.”
Han shook his hand. Speaking in a low voice and mumbling so his words would not emerge distinctly, he said, “I want to thank the powers that be that my helmet is stuck, because it keeps your stink out of my nostrils.”
Sal-Solo shot Wedge a confused glance. “What did he say?”
“He wants to thank you and his luck, because he never dreamed he'd land this assignment.”
“Ah. You're welcome.”
Han added, “And I'd like to chain you to a bantha and drag you across fifty kilometers of dart flowers and meat-eating plants until you're just a stain.”
Wedge cleared his throat. “Aalos, try not to be so effusive with your praise. The Chief of State will think you're trying to flatter him.”
“What he says doesn't matter.” Sal-Solo clapped Han on the shoulder. “What matters is a successful mission. Keep up the good work.” He turned and strode away as quickly as he'd come, his escort hurrying to keep up.
When a distant whoosh and the cessation of footsteps signaled that Sal-Solo and his entourage had left the chamber, Han pulled his helmet off again.
“That,” Wedge said, “was close.”
“Too close.”
“To celebrate our narrow escape, let's get a drink.”
“Two drinks.”
LORRD CITY, LORRD
Ben was awakened by someone shaking his foot. Resentful, he opened one eye to see Jacen standing at the end of his cot. “Time to get up,” Jacen said.
“M'wake.”
“Get dressed, get your gear.”
Ben managed to get his other eye open. He sat up. “Did Doctor Rotham translate more tassels?” he asked.
“No. We have another situation where they've asked for Jedi help.”
“Oh.” Ben concentrated on getting his brain working correctly. “I hope I don't blow up this time.”
“I'm going to blow up again, aren't I?” Ben said.
Jacen nodded absently. “Probably.”
They stood just outside the edges of the milling, uncertain crowd at the perimeter of a broad plaza. The duracrete of the plaza surface was inlaid with river-smoothed pebbles, making the surface aesthetically pleasing and artificially natural, and even out at this distance it was darkened by water.
At the far side of the plaza, just in front of the Lorrd Academy for Aquatic Studies, was a huge transparisteel aquarium. It had been preciously designed to look exactly like the sort of aquarium found in the living chamber of any set of quarters, or in the bedroom of any curious child, but it was the size of a three-story private residence; a Quarren or Mon Calamari family could have been happy there, if its members had an exhibitionist streak. Stairs and a small open-air lift were affixed to the narrower south wall, and stretched across its top was a mighty durasteel beam supporting the weight of a housing for the water-conditioning and -monitoring equipment.
The water had been drained from the giant container—hence the liquid darkening the plaza for a considerable distance around it. At the bottom of the aquarium, inside, was the skyline of downtown Lorrd City, including the most prominent university's administration building, styled as a white tower, and the broad, welcoming student assembly building. They were reproduced in miniature and in gaudier colors than the original buildings enjoyed. Huddled among these buildings, stumbling across the colored stones, gravel, and dying aquatic life-forms that littered the aquarium bottom, were representatives of many species—Ben saw humans, Bothans, Mon Calamari, and Verpines among them. All of them paid close, fearful attention to the being that now stood at the aquarium's southeast corner.
He was a human, huge, two meters tall and at least 150 kilos, of which a significant portion was muscle. He had dark hair, mustache, and beard, cut close but styled rakishly, as if he viewed himself as a space pirate from a children's holoseries. He wore severe black garments. In his left hand was a blaster pistol and in his right, some smaller object the Jedi could not make out.
He also wore a human man. Strapped to his back by a series of bands of binder tape was a middle-aged, dark-skinned man of average height. He was strapped to the larger man back-to-back, so that they faced in opposite directions.
“This man,” Nelani said, “is obviously crazy.”
According to witnesses, a few hours earlier the aquarium had been full of water and of aquatic life-forms going about their usual business of idly swimming or eating one another. Then a crew of workers orthugs had arrived, led by the big man. While some of them opened emergency vents on the aquarium, spilling its water out across the plaza, others had rounded up visitors to the museum portion of the academy, led them here, and forced them to climb the stairs and jump down into the water before too much of it was drained. There they had bobbed, frightened and unhappy, while the thugs had strapped one last hostage to the leader's back, then fled. Once the Lorrd Security Forces had begun arriving, the captor had leapt in and bobbed along with the others until the water had reached floor level in the aquarium.
“What do we know about this one?” Nelani asked.
Lieutenant Samran, a couple of meters away, directing the activities of his security officers via comlink, glanced at her and shook his head. “We don't know who he is. When you talk to him, do us the favor of finding that out . . . We do know that he gave his comlink frequency to one of our officers.” He held out a little scrap of flimsi, which Ben took. Ben began tuning his comlink to the frequency written there. Samran continued, “Also that he claims there are explosives packed in between his back and his hostage's. The thing in his right hand is supposed to be a triggering device. Oh, and he wants to talk to Lorrd's pet Jedi.” He gave Nelani an apologetic look. “His words, my lady, not mine.”
“Of course.”
“Have you had any luck tracking down his men?” Jacen asked.
Samran shook his head. “They were all garbed in simple dark clothes and stretchcloth masks. When they fled, they could have mingled with crowds in the streets or in any of several dozen public buildings. They could be anywhere.” He gestured to the near edge of the crowd.
“I think,” Jacen told Nelani, “that this time I will exercise my prerogatives of seniority, and speak to the man first.”
“Just remember that this time you can't blow him up without taking an innocent life,” she said.
“Let's go.” Jacen led the other Jedi on the long walk across the empty plaza. As they walked, Ben took Jacen's comlink and adjusted it, too, to the kidnapper's frequency.
They were only twenty meters from the imposing transparisteel wall of the aquarium when they saw the captor's lips move. Jacen's and Ben's comlinks carried his words: “Hello, Jedi.”
Jacen stopped, and the other two drew to a halt behind him. “I would say Good morning,” Jacen said, “except that you've kept it from being a good morning for several people. Myself included; I was looking forward to sleeping late.”
The captor swung around to look at his captives. He did so apparently without even noticing the weight of the man strapped to his back. The Jedi had a glimpse of this captive, a balding man with fear on his face, before the captor swung back to look at them. “They were bored,” the captor said. “Else why would they be here? Now they're not bored. They'll be able to talk about this day for the rest of their lives. I'm doing them a favor, allowin
g them to tan themselves in the glare of my transitory importance.”
“Literary critic,” Nelani said.
The captor's eyebrows shot up. “Actually, my education was in literary issues—literary syncretization, the process by which the popular story cycles of different worlds merge, their archetypal characters becoming unified, as the individual worlds enter the galactic community. So literary criticism is part of my profession, yes.”
“You look more like a professional wrestler,” Ben said.
The captor looked delighted. “I probably should have been. I would have derived more pleasure from my life.”
“What's your name?” Jacen asked.
“I am Doctor Movac Arisster. Of Lorrd City, tenured with the University of Pangalactic Cultural Studies.”
“I'm Jacen. This is Nelani, and this is Ben. You indicated that you wanted to speak with Jedi. Was this because someone suggested it to you?”
“Yes.” Arisster seemed unconcerned that Jacen had divined his secret. “The most remarkable part was who it was. Have you ever heard of Aayla Secura?”
Jacen nodded; he'd run across the name on several occasions—in his early studies at the Jedi Academy, and subsequently in his travels to worlds she had visited.
But apparently Ben and Nelani were unfamiliar with it. Arisster turned more toward them. “She was a Jedi Master at the end of the Old Republic. Alleged to have been shot down by clone troopers like so many of your order at that time. A blue Twi'lek, and surviving holos of her show her to be beautiful of face and form. Well, in her career, she benefited the people of many worlds, and entered the folkloric cycles of several primitive cultures, where she often was merged with local historical figures or goddess-characters.” Arisster lost focus for a moment, staring into the distance. “Even today, educated immigrants from those cultures will write fictive cycles about her, some of them amazingly prurient.”
He returned his attention to the Jedi. “Tell me, Jacen, do people do the same about you? Write stories about you and pair you off with unlikely romantic partners?”
Jacen ignored the question. “Aayla Secura told you to do this?”
“No.” Arisster shook his head so vehemently that it rocked the body of the man strapped to him. “I chose to do this. Then Aayla Secura—or, rather, someone in her form—came to me and suggested that I bring the Jedi in to talk.”
Jacen gave him a puzzled frown. “For what purpose?”
“To enter your story cycle, of course. I'm a nobody, and I'm dying. In six months, incurable cancers of the lungs and other organs, probably caused by a radiation leak I experienced on a trip many years ago, will kill me. No one will ever have heard of me. Except now I'll have a little trace of literary immortality as a man, a normal human man with no combat skills or Force abilities, who beat a Jedi.”
Arisster leaned in closer to the transparisteel, staring intently at Jacen. “I want to thank you for being here. I'm sure that Nelani is a competent and loyal Jedi Knight, but she's not famous. Jacen Solo's cycle will be a much better one to be affixed to.”
“Beat me, how?”
“By denying you a happy ending.” Arisster went from merry to almost apologetic. “This apparatus in my right hand is the trigger for the bomb strapped to my hack. By which I do not mean Haxan, here, but an actual explosive layered between our bodies. If I release the trigger, it blows up. And if you should be considering using your Jedi powers to grip my hand, well, too much pressure and it blows up. Other things will set it off. Keywords I might speak. Too long a silence between keywords I'm supposed to speak. A key press on a datapad, or a laser relay from allies who are watching these events.”
“Being famous won't do you any good if you're dead,” Ben said.
“True. But it's something I always wanted, and I'll die knowing I've achieved it. I'll talk with you until you're convinced that I can't be stopped. You'll use Jedi mind tricks, to which I already know I'm immune, or other techniques, which won't work. Then I'll throw myself into the midst of this crowd of wet, frightened, smelling-of-fish tourists, and detonate myself.”
“That's selfish,” Nelani said. “Destructively, cruelly selfish.”
Arisster snorted, amused. “All decisions are selfish. Your becoming a Jedi? Probably based on your desire to 'improve the galaxy,' which is just another way of saying 'imposing your view of what's good upon people who don't agree with you.' “
“What if I promised to make you famous?” Jacen said. “If I gave you my word. I'd take you along with me as a sidekick and put you in dangerous situation after dangerous situation. Believe me, you wouldn't last six months in that sort of circumstance, and you might actually do some good before you died.”
Arisster blinked at him, obviously taken aback. “I hadn't considered that. But . . . no.”
“Why not?”
“Well, you might be lying. Jedi lie. Also, the disease might kill me early, before I saw any action. And third, as a sidekick, I'd merely be a footnote, and I could be forgotten trivially. This way, I'll be firmly attached to any account of your career.”
“I see.” Jacen fell silent, pondering.
Ben could feel a sorrow, a solemnity growing within Jacen. His mentor was not doing anything to conceal it, and it flowed from him through the Force. It made Ben jittery, and he crossed his arms as if against a cold wind.
“Oh, please.” Arisster stared a rebuke at Jacen. “You can't have given up already. You haven't tried any tricks, unless that sidekick offer was a trick, and you haven't begged.”
“I haven't given up,” Jacen said. There was a faint sadness in his voice. “Can I speak to your captive, please?”
“Of course.” Obligingly, Arisster swung around, whirling the other man to face the Jedi. The man was pale and looked as though he was on the verge of throwing up.
“Your name is Haxan?” Jacen asked.
“Yes, Serom Haxan.”
“I'm very sorry, Serom.” Jacen began backing away from the aquarium.
Ben and Nelani backed up, too, keeping pace with Jacen. “What are you doing?” Nelani asked.
“What I have to.”
They'd taken half a dozen steps before Arisster noticed. Arisster swung around to face them. “What are you doing?” he asked.
“Getting to what I hope is a safe distance,” Jacen said.
Arisster stood there, transfixed, for a long moment, long enough for the Jedi to take another half a dozen steps backward. Then he turned as if to charge toward the other captives.
Jacen reached out with his open hand and squeezed it into a fist.
Arisster and Haxan disappeared, engulfed in a misshapen ball of fire.
Fire and smoke filled the aquarium, and the crack of the explosion rolled across the plaza—but, confined as it was by the transparisteel walls of the aquarium, it hurt Ben's ears far less than the detonation at the spaceport had.
And the transparisteel held. The near wall buckled outward slightly under the force of the explosion, but the other three merely distorted for a moment before returning to their proper shapes, and most of the force of the explosion was channeled upward.
Immediately the Jedi charged forward again, up to the transparent wall, and tried to peer through the smoke obscuring the tank's contents. But the smoke was already thinning, rising, and they could see men and women beginning to emerge from behind the scorched ruins of the reproduction of Lorrd's downtown. None of them seemed badly injured—Ben saw smoke on faces, some blood from gravel shrapnel.
“Emergency crews!” Nelani shouted, waving toward Samran and his agents. “Get up here!”
The emergency crews used a portable winch to lower medics into the tank and begin extracting Arisster's hostages from its floor. None ventured near the gruesome blood slick that represented the largest portion of what was left of Arisster and Haxan.
Meanwhile, meters away, Ben listened to Nelani and Jacen argue again.
“Are you insane?” Nelani asked. “We didn't explore
a single option other than your I'll-make you-my-sidekick offer.”
“There were no options,” Jacen said. “He was right. He had won. The only thing we could do was limit the scope of his victory. That meant limiting him to one life instead of several.”
“You don't know. We didn't try—”
“You could feel his determination, his strength.” Jacen's tone chided her. “He had decided to die today. When someone decides to die, it's hard to dissuade him.”
“Haxan hadn't decided to die.”
“True. But he was going to, no matter what we did.”
“No—”
“What was the blaster pistol for, Nelani?”
That brought her up short. “What?”
“The blaster pistol he held. What was it for?”
“To compel obedience?”
Jacen shook his head. “He had his bomb for that. The bomb was all he needed, and he knew it. So what was the blaster for?”
“What do you think it was for?”
“To shoot hostages, one by one, as the afternoon wore on. To shoot them, and to mock us for our helplessness.”
She considered that. “Maybe.”
“Definitely. And with the first one he shot, our loss, our failure, would have been already equal to the one we eventually did face—one innocent life. With two shot, we'd have been worse off than we are now. And so on.”
She stared at him for a long moment, and Ben could see in her expression a tragic mask of disappointment, disillusionment. “Jacen, you have a good argument for everything you do. But my gut tells me that you're doing wrong.”
“Your gut, or the Force?”
“My gut.”
“What does the Force tell you?”
“Nothing. The Force tells me nothing about what just happened.”
“Then it wasn't the wrong choice.” Jacen turned away to head back to the Jedi speeder.
STAR WARS: BETRAYAL Page 33